Stomach Cancer Awareness Month: 2020 Immunotherapy Research Updates

At the European Society for Medical Oncology meeting in September, scientists presented the latest data from the CheckMate 649 trial, which includes patients with advanced or metastatic stomach (gastric) cancer, gastroesophageal junction cancer, and esophageal adenocarcinoma. They reported that the combination of an immunotherapy (nivolumab) plus chemotherapy improved overall survival and progression-free survival, compared with chemotherapy alone. That’s just one of several new promising studies in stomach cancer.

This November for Stomach Cancer Awareness Month, we look at new research, new treatments, and how we’re working toward a future immune to stomach cancer.

Stomach Cancer Quiz

Ask Your Immunotherapy Questions

Join us at the first-ever CRI Virtual Immunotherapy Patient Summit. This free event connects you with cancer patients and immunotherapy experts, all from the comfort and safety of your own home.

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Stomach Cancer Scientist Spotlight

CRI Fellow Walter K. Mowel, PhD, and his team at Yale University have shown that the gut nervous system promotes defense against bacterial infection through inflammasomes. While these inflammasomes have been closely linked to development of inflammatory bowel diseases—which can lead to several cancers—the role of gut neurons in this process is unclear, so Dr. Mowel plans to examine the role of the intestinal nervous system.

Learn about inflammasomes and stomach cancer

Immunotherapy for Stomach Cancer Information Updated

On June 16, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda), a PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor, for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic cancers—including stomach cancer—with high tumor mutational burden (TMB-H). This is the second biomarker-based indication regardless of tumor type and a sign of the growing importance of biomarkers and genomic sequencing in cancer research and care. As the research and treatment landscape changes, we keep our immunotherapy for stomach cancer information up to date.

VIEW Stomach Cancer UPDATE

Find a Stomach Cancer Clinical Trial

A variety of new and promising cancer immunotherapy treatments are only available to patients in clinical trials. Our Immunotherapy Clinical Trial Finder will match you to trials for which you may be eligible, and you can help speed the development of potentially lifesaving drugs for yourself and others.

FIND A Cancer CLinical TRIAL

Support Stomach Cancer Research

In 2014, Vladimir Vigdorovich, PhD, a CRI postdoctoral fellow at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and colleagues developed a system to screen monoclonal antibodies directed at B7x (an immune checkpoint molecule overexpressed in stomach cancer) and found one that inhibited the growth of B7x-expressing tumors. This Stomach Cancer Awareness Month, support lifesaving cancer immunotherapy research.

DONATE to stomach cancer research